Updated Dec. 16
As the cost of education increases, Vineyard schools are looking at the possibility of further regionalizing its school districts in an effort to more equitably allocate educational resources on the Island.
On Nov. 21, a working group was established by the All-Island School Committee to explore the possibility of regionalizing its six schools into a single district.
“It has been a quiet conversation for a while, because there are a number of … disparities on the Island, certainly on the elementary level, based on what people have and what can be offered,” Amy Houghton, who chairs the committee, told The Times.
Martha’s Vineyard Schools Superintendent Richie Smith said the possibility of regionalization was still in its infancy, but he said it was notable that there seemed to be more enthusiasm for the idea from school committee members than in years past.
There are five public school districts on the Island. Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School and each of the down-Island elementary schools are set up as their own districts. West Tisbury School and Chilmark School fall under the banner of the Up-Island Regional School District.
As of October, when the annual student census is done, there are 2,154 students in the Island’s public school system.
Exploring the concept follows news that the superintendent’s shared-services budget will be experiencing its second year of double-digit percentage increases. The fiscal year 2026 shared-services budget, which was also approved on Nov. 21 by the committee, will be $10.6 million, a nearly 14 percent increase from the previous fiscal year’s $9.3 million. The $9.3 million shared-services budget itself was a spike of more than 14 percent from the fiscal year 2024 budget of $8.15 million.
Documents shared by school officials show some of the largest segments of growth included a $734,842 increase to contractual obligations — including pay bumps for staff — and a $284,093 boost for special needs education. Smith said around two-thirds of the shared-services budget goes toward meeting the special education needs across the Island.
Smith said the shared services were one of a few ways in which the Island schools cooperate with each other in a regional effort, although this has caused some confusion for the Massachusetts Department of Secondary and Elementary Education.
“We have a complicated structure for running the school system down here,” Mark Friedman, Martha’s Vineyard Public Schools business administrator, told The Times.
Friedman underscored he was neutral on the matter of regionalization, but he mentioned there were some benefits to the option. The state offers transportation reimbursements for regional school districts, and it might boost efficiency, since the number of school committees would be reduced.
Still, there are some drawbacks. Regionalization means towns would lose some control over school resources, Friedman said.
Full regionalization would require the support of all six towns, according to Friedman.
“Each school has its uniqueness, but there are some greater needs that require more collaboration,” Houghton said.
While the shared-services budget is driving the regionalization conversation, Houghton said it was a need for mental health counselors that triggered the discussions. According to Houghton, schools in regionalized districts have an emergency fund called “excess and deficiencies” — an option the down-Island schools lack. So if there isn’t enough money in the shared-services budget to cover counseling for all of the children, a student at a down-Island school might not get the help they need. In this case, Houghton said, another part of the budget — whether that’s from shared services, the student’s school, or a combination from the two budgets — would need to be cut to support the student.
“Bottom line is the child’s needs will be met,” she said.
This also led to the possibility of collaboration and savings in other areas, like transportation, through regionalization and avoiding such high budgetary increases.
Houghton said the shared-service funding also allows for school resources to be allocated where they are needed, like transferring a special education teacher to another Island school. Similarly, she said, it would be beneficial to be able to share more resources, for instance if one school has an advanced reading program while another doesn’t. Houghton says regionalizing and boosting resource sharing would help to reduce disparities between student populations on the Island.
Houghton argues that when Vineyard schools pay roughly $30,000 per student, there shouldn’t be educational disparities.
Additionally, Houghton said the “ebbs and flows” in each school’s population make planning the budget difficult. She pointed out that Tisbury, currently at 300 students, had seen an increase of 50 students. This was due to factors like families moving in search of housing, or children transferring to schools where they would do better, not because there are 50 new students on the Island.
Houghton says exploring regionalization won’t be an easy process, and different options will need to be seen outside full regionalization, like combining the down-Island towns into one district.
“There will be a lot of people who are not in favor of it, but I think that’s why we need to look at it from a variety of different angles,” she said.
Smith agreed that exploring regionalization will be a lengthy process. He said there are benefits to regionalization, like eliminating redundancies, but it was premature to say whether the schools are headed in the direction of combining districts.
“If there continues to be strong interest by the school committee, we will put out hypotheticals,” Smith said.
Smith said if these hypothetical programming and staffing scenarios show an “overwhelming advantage,” both the school committee and the Island community will likely favor more regionalization. If Vineyard school district regionalization is accepted by Island voters, then the change would also need state-level approval.
“It would take the consensus of the Island to do something like this,” Smith said.
For now, it’ll depend on the efforts of interested school committee members.
“We’ll see if the momentum continues,” he said.
